Rapedes

Personal Computer News

Lasting Appeal 3/5

Playability 2/5

Use Of Machine 4/5

Overall Value 4/5

Mike Gerrard 4/5

NAME: Rapedes SYSTEM: Spectrum PRICE: £5.95 PUBLISHER: Visions, [redacted] FORMAT: Cassette LANGUAGE: Basic OTHER VERSIONS: None OUTLETS: Mail order/retail JEEPERS CREEPERS Sub-titled The Centipede's Revenge, this seems to be a version of Centipede, albeit a good one. OBJECTIVES If you've spent the last year stuck in a compost heap, in Centipede you're based at the foot of the screen and must shoot the wriggling segmented creature as it descends. It zig-zags in a straightforward manner until diverted by a mushroom or other obstacle. Hit a body segment rather than its head and it splits into two new creatures. FIRST IMPRESSIONS Visions appears to have caught the increasingly contagious disease (Cassetium Garbagium) in which you fill the cassette insert with this and that but forget to include instructions - rather important in this case as after you've selected the Kempston or keyboard option you're invited to 'select Speed 1-5.' Do that and you're straight into a game without knowing the control keys. IN PLAY The game itself is a good colourful version of the arcade classic, and that's more important than initial irritations. You have three lives, with a bonus every 20,000 points, the H key will hold the game and there's the essential Hall of Fame at the end. Your laser can move in eight directions using the joystick or, more awkwardly, two keys simultaneously on the keyboard, and it can patrol as far as about one quarter the way up the screen. Spiders bounce across the bottom in an unpredictable manner - sometimes staying for ages and then suddenly pouncing on you if you don't see them off. From time to time a snail will crawl across the top, looking so like Brian from The Magic Roundabout that I found it hard to shoot it, and there are little bugs which descend leaving mushroom trails behind them, and which appear to be indestructible. The five-speed options range from the extremely fast to the tediously slow, which should satisfy everyone, but the game could have done with more sound than incessant laser, pings. Also, a rapid fire option would have saved a lot of wear and tear on the old digits. VERDICT Versions of Centipede for the Spectrum are about as numerous as, well, legs on a centipede, and this one's as good as most if you get that uncontrollable urge to kill a creepie-crawlie.

Crash

Use of Computer 52%

Graphics 63%

Playability 64%

Getting Started 64%

Addictive Qualities 62%

Value For Money 61%

Overall 61%

Unknown

Unknown

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Producer: Visions Memory Required: 16K Retail Price: £5.95 Language: Machine code Author: Kevin Bezant If you have read the review of G-Force by Euro-Byte, you will have noticed that we said the other Euro-Byte program was Pod, but that it is being marketed by Visions under the name of Rapedes. However Pod is written by Boris Baginekl, whereas Rapedes is written by Kevin Bezant. Are Bezant and Baginski one and the same? Both programs under their own names are availble and a quick glance at the graphics will convince anyone that these two are one and the same program - even if the authors are not! There are a few minor differences which we point out before the Criticism. Rapedes is in fact a classic 'Centipede'. Your ship may more left and right as well as up and down to about one-third the screen height. There are green mushrooms which erode with four shots, a large spider and snail, red mushrooms and, as the level of play gets higher, falling centipede segments. The centipede itself is made of alternating blue and yellow circles. The principal differences between Rapedes and Pod (apart from the names of the author) are that Pod costs £6.45, has only one speed (fastish) and a different key layout - a rather awkward one which uses G/H left /right and Y/B up down with T/N/V/U for the diagonals. It does, however, have continuous fire, which Rapedes does not. For collectors of the unusual we would recommend buying both versions! COMMENTS Control keys: Sinclair keys, 6/7 left/right 8/9 up/down, 0 to fire. Eight-directional movement Joystick: Kempston, ZX 2 Keyboard play: very responsive, although awkward to use Use of colour: good Graphics: simple, but effective with detail and fast Sound: average Skill levels: 5 speeds Lives: 3 Features: 1 or 2-player games

A pretty classic 'Centipede' hides under the name of Rapedes.

ZX Computing

Lasting Appeal 50%

Graphics 50%

Originality 40%

Playability 50%

Use Of Machine 50%

Value 50%

James Walsh

Rapedes, or the Centipedes Revenge, is a copy of the age old arcade game, Centipedes. The scenario is as follows: a centipede is moving across the screen one side to the other getting closer to you all the time. The screen is scattered with mushroom type objects through which the centipede cannot go so it has to come a step closer to you instead. These mushrooms can be shot at and destroyed by your laser if required. The aim of the game is to shoot every segment of the centipede. As a segment is destroyed, it turns into a mushroom whilst the other segments move towards you independently. Once a centipede is totally destroyed, a new and more vicious one will appear. The scenario is good, as seen by the success of the arcade version, but is it not rather outdated? Verdict: The graphics are nice but every movement is so painfully slow. If and when a spider appears to wreak havoc, it is so slow and predictable that it is hardly worth worrying about. The explosions are little better and in some cases far worse. An old theme has been copied poorly with obvious programming shortcuts which highlight a less than brilliant game. The potential is there, as can be seen from Artic's version of Centipedes, a version which is fast, furious and very exciting. What a shame this one is not.

Personal Computer Games

Graphics 4/10

Sound 4/10

Ease Of Use 3/10

Originality 1/10

Lasting Interest 2/10

Overall 3/10

Chris Anderson 3/10

MACHINE: Spectrum 16/48K JOYSTICK: Kempston, Optional CATEGORY: Arcade SUPPLIER: Visions PRICE: £5.95 Average version of Centipede - clear if unambitious graphics a choice of game speeds, and a nice fat spider is easy to hit.